But now I am alone—dependent only upon Divine mercy and that black lad."
Stas gazed at him with astonishment.
"And this camp?"
"It is the camp of death."
"And those negroes?"
"Those negroes are sleeping and will not awaken any more."
"I do not understand—"
"They are suffering from the sleeping sickness.[1] Those are men from beyond the Great Lakes where this terrible disease is continually raging and all fell prey to it, excepting those who previously died of small-pox. Only that boy remains to me."
Stas, just before, was struck by the fact that at the time when he slid into the ravine not a negro stirred or even quivered, and that during the whole conversation all slept—some with heads propped on the rock, others with heads drooping upon their breasts.
"They are sleeping and will not awaken any more?" he asked, as though he had not yet realized the significance of what he had heard.
And Linde said:
"Ah! This Africa is a charnel house."
But further conversation was interrupted by the stamping of the horses, which, startled at something in the jungle, came jumping with fettered legs to the edge of the valley, desiring to be nearer to the men and the light.
"That is nothing—those are horses," the Swiss said. "I captured them from the Mahdists whom I routed a
- ↑ Recent investigations have demonstrated that this disease is inoculated in people by the bite of the same fly "tsetse" which kills oxen and horses. Nevertheless its bite causes the sleeping sickness only in certain localities. During the time of the Mahdist rebellion the cause of the disease was unknown.
